A short multi-speaker transcript of a discussion in which Ayn Rand defends Israel and condemns Arab violence, criticizes U.S. foreign policy as disgraceful since the New Deal, and expresses Objectivist views. Other speakers challenge her characterization of Arabs as racist and primitive and accuse her of intolerance and anger; Rand responds by equating terrorism with moral monstrosity and rejecting violence.
I'd like to know your opinion on the United States foreign policy and what is happening in the Middle east right now.
Right now I'm not sure we know what's happening. I think the United States foreign policy has been disgraceful for years, for decades, I would say, roughly since the New Deal and in part even before that. But if you mean whose side should one be on, Israel or the Arabs? I would certainly say Israel because it's the advanced, technological, civilized country amidst a group of almost totally primitive savages who have not changed for years and who are racist and who resent Israel because it's bringing industry and intelligence and modern technology into their stagnation.
Your philosophy of objectivism.
That's right.
I just have one point that I think should be made. Ms. Rand. With time fleeting here, your characterization of the situation in the Middle east came down rather gratuitously and in a very angry way on the Arabs and without discussing the merits of either side. In a most complicated and painful collision of cultures and peoples in our world.
Why couldn't the men, the millions of.
Men, women and children who are Arab and who find themselves in this desperate conflict and look around wondering where peace.
Will be, why can't they be angry.
With you for your characterization of them, your slap at them, your roundhouse criticism.
Of them, when you don't seem to be able to tolerate a questioner who suggests that she disagrees with you? Characterization is you do not accept any criticism unless you level it.
No, I don't resort to terrorism. I don't go around murdering my opponents, innocent women and children. That is what I have against the Arabs. That takes the conflict out of the sphere of civilized conflicts and makes it murderous. And anyone private citizens who resort to force is a monster, and that's what makes me condemn and despise them.
